254 
PARK AND CEMETERY. 
IMPROVEMENT ASSOCIATIONS. 
Conducted by 
Frances Copley Seavey. 
Leave the World a pleasanter place than you found it. 
INTERESTING THE PUBLIC IN IMPROVEMENT WORK. 
In devoting our space this month to sugges- 
tions regarding the best methods of interesting the 
public in the work of improving every-day sur- 
roundings, we feel that some practical good sliould 
result. Not that there is anything new or novel in 
the special means recommended, for it has been 
successfully tried in numerous instances, but be- 
cause there are many new organizations that may 
not be familiar with it. 
We believe that there is no better method than 
the “illustrated talk.” When subjects, speakers 
and slides are selected with discretion to meet local 
conditions and necessities, the result is invariably 
satisfactory. Slides showing actual changes 
wrought by means of planting, such as the two 
shown in the illustrations given in this department 
last month, can not fail to impress all who see 
them, especially if accompanied by intelligent ex- 
planations and clear, practical suggestions. 
When money is not available for securing a 
professional to give such talks, it is quite possible 
to compile an address from the writings of others to 
fit almost any series of lantern slides, or someone 
at a distance may be engaged to write a lecture to 
be read in connection with slides that may be 
available. 
Every improvement society should secure 
good negatives of as many ‘‘horrible examples’’ 
in their own town or community as possible, as 
well as others of good features of planting in their 
own vicinity as a stock to be drawn upon for effec- 
tive lantern slides as they are needed. 
Views of simple, home planting similar in 
character to the accompanying illustrations make 
good slides. With them it is easy to show the 
advantage of a preliminary plan in the placing of 
even a few plants in a small garden. If, as in the 
case these views represent, some one crowds a 
little house right up against your lawn, with its in- 
quisitive windows overlooking your grounds, your 
verandas and your movements; this example clearly 
shows how one indefatigable gardener (a woman j 
raised a series of charming screens as shield and 
buckler against inquiring eyes, while at the same 
time improving her own outlook as well as making 
pleasant shade for her neighbor’s windows. By 
minglinga little kindly tact with her gardeningevery 
one concerned escaped with feelings intact, the 
moral atmosphere remaining as serene as that of 
the garden was peaceful. It would, indeed, be an 
unusual and thoroughly undesirable neighbor who 
would object to the invasion of air delicious with 
the rare fragrance of blossoming honeysuckles, or 
to the velvety faces of hundreds of clematis blooms 
“.\S SHIEI.D ,\NI> BUCKUER.” 
First shrub at the right (as 3-ou face the picture) : Tartarian Honeysuckle; low, large-leaved herbaceous plants to the left 
of the Bush Honeysuckle: Funkia grandiflora alba and F. variegata undulata; vine on frame before the first window at the 
right; Clematis Jacknianni; next herbaceous plant that is very noticeable is a large fern, l Asplenium); the bare fence back of 
the fern was formerly concealed by a well-grown Lonicera Halleana which was killed to the ground by the extraordinarily 
severe winter of 1897-1898, but is making good new growth; large shrub in front of middle window; Philadelphus coronaria 
in full flower; vine (looks very like a .shrub) in front of third window from the right: Miniresota Iloney, suckle, also in blc.^sri.n. 
